“Doug Jones Seeks Inquiry Into Misinformation Efforts in Alabama Senate Race”

NYT:

Senator Doug Jones, the Democrat who was an unwitting beneficiary of misinformation tactics during a special election in Alabama in 2017, asked the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday to investigate the episodes.

Mr. Jones made his formal request for an inquiry more than three weeks after The New York Times detailed one of the clandestine efforts in which Democrats employed Russian-style digital deception while Alabama was locked in one of its most competitive campaigns in memory.

“Such deceptive tactics have no place in American politics and must be repudiated by those involved in our political system,” Mr. Jones wrote in a letter to Ellen L. Weintraub, a Democratic member of the commission.

Neither Mr. Jones nor his campaign is believed to have known about, much less approved of, any of the deception. Mr. Jones had quickly pledged to seek an inquiry, but his notarized letter on Wednesday, which also cited reporting by The Washington Post, represented his first formal step in support of an investigation by the commission.

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